TW: lab whump, noncon body modification, medical whump, vivisection, forced non-sexual nudity (kinda), dehumanization, living weapon whump
The facility always gets colder while Conduit is away on mission. The combination of being carved from the bedrock and the geothermal heating and cooling system keeps the place barely above 60 degrees. The vents purr idly as the subterranean conditioning system’s fans drawing air from under the facility. Conduit walks down down the hallway. The cold slowly presses through the seams of her exosuit. She doesn’t understand why he insists on keeping the facility this cold, but that was hot her decision. Conduit shakes her head as she opens her palm, and pulls on her magnetism and closes off a few of the extra vents on her exosuit. Immediately, the extra chill disappears.
Her footsteps rattle off the tile floor as the approaches the heavy metal door to the lab. The cacophony of footsteps ripple around the walls and into the inside of her helmet. The hallway leading up to the laboratory is a long and winding one. There are no signs, since very few people are permitted this deep in the facility. Stepping up to the door, she places her hand on the door and pauses. Conduit tries to listen for movement on the other side. There isn’t much in the way of noise inside the lab except for the near silent humming that never quite leaves the walls. Then, there’s the faint sound of wheels rolling against the floor.
He’s here. His presence doesn’t surprise her, but the lack of the banging of one of his inventions coupling his movements did.
Conduit raises her hand and raps lightly but firmly against the door. She waits a moment before walking inside, per his wishes. Her electromagnetism wraps around the locking mechanism and she slides it free. Opening the door slowly, Conduit steps into the lab. His laboratory is a spartan place. He lives by function over form in every aspect of his life that he permits her to see. This is the epoch of that ideal. Machines in various states of construction sit on tables and sprawl in corded off sections of the tile floor. His private specialty lies in weapons, the sort meant to amplify or modify a super-human's abilities. This place is where they are born. Conduit is familiar with a few of them. The rest look either new or freshly dismantled into an unrecognizable state.
He is not waiting for her at the door. Relief washes over her body. Something else occupies his mind, so this shouldn’t take long. Conduit scans the room while walking inside. Eventually, she sees him in the far left corner of the room. He colossal desk is the centerpiece of the room. It isn’t even in the actual center of the room, instead tucked into a dim corner, but it stands out like if it is centered. The hulking structure consumes swaths of wall like a weed allowed to fester. Multiple shelves, drawers, and computer screens line the walls as beacons to his planning. She used to try and read them.
Conduit closes the distance between her and the desk. Her solid footsteps bounce off the metal contraptions around her. She comes to a stop at the invisible and unspoken edge of his desk’s bubble, a solid three meters away from him. He disliked when she remained any closer. She has little desire to upset him. The doctor doesn’t initially turn to face her, finishing typing out the last of whatever project preoccupied him first.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Reinhardt,” Conduit says, keeping her voice low and professional. She watches him from the safety of the obscured visor. He’s relaxed, shoulders resting against the back of his lab chair.
Still not looking up from his work, he replies, “Assuming by the absence of mechanical stress that you were successful in retrieving what I asked.”
His work absorbed him, good. She can make this brief and return to her bay.
“Indeed,” Conduit reaches behind her into a secure compartment in her exosuit and retrieves a USB. She holds it up to try and make it as visible as possible.
Dr. Reinhardt holds up his hand, and Conduit quickly steps into the unseen bubble. Carefully, she places it in his palm. The moment he wraps his fingers around it, she retreats to the edge again. She moves calmly and deliberately, the best method to allow him to continue to work undisturbed. Only she notices when she relaxes outside of that unspoken range. She bites back a sigh.
He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a plain laptop. She knows its a bare bones piece of hardware with no identifiable information that serves to ensure nothing sneaks into the data she retrieves. He plugs it in and opens it up. It boosts up quickly and, when the USB doesn’t immediately fry it, he closes it again. Setting it aside with the USB still inside, Dr. Reinhardt finally turns to face her. Finally, she can read him properly. His brow is furrowed in a concentration she can’t quite place. He taps the armrest of his chair almost absentmindedly.
“I will have that analyzed later,” he says more to himself than to Conduit, “Updating you will give that data enough time to reveal if it was any malware waiting for me.”
Under her exosuit, Conduit stills. She isn’t expecting to be modified today. Normally, she has notice, or when her exosuit is damaged enough to require repairs. Then she’s expecting it. It’s never unprompted. She gets a chance to prepare.
“Update?”
“Yes,” Dr. Reinhardt rises to his feet and begins walking towards Conduit’s armoring station. “I’m updating your suit.”
Conduit doesn't move. She swims internally as the sounds of his footsteps echo off the inside of her helmet. She gets warning. He gives her warning. Modifying her is a long, complex and painful process. She has time to prepare. It makes the process easier on him.
“Is something wrong, Conduit?” Dr. Reinhardt asks. His voice is empty, almost hollow. Conduit snaps to attention. He’s standing over by the armoring station. One of his hands rests on it. His fingers idly drum against the steel. A shadow casts over his face as he looks at her. His brow furrows ever so slightly.
Please don’t make me do this. I’m not ready.
“No, doctor,” Conduit says instead. She begins to walk towards the table, “Nothing is wrong.”
Dr. Reinhardt steps back just enough to allow her to slot herself into the person shaped divot in the armoring table. It vaguely resembles an operating table, the sort that can me mechanically raised and angled as needed. The largest difference is the box like compartment underneath it where the mechanical arms that are required to unbolt her from her exosuit. Conduit steps into the device. She presses her fingers into the tiny pores in the finger slots, pulling air into her lungs slowly and methodically. Her chest expands out enough for her to feel the edges of her exosuit.
He presses a button on the side of the table and the machine groans to life. It slides backwards, holding her up at an angle. Multiple arms extend from under the table and loom over her. The largest descends and its plate snaps onto her chest. The electromagnetic parts hum in her preternatural senses. A pair of smaller arms emerge from the plate and hook under the breastplate. Tiny screws loosen and Conduit can feel the plate click off and she watches it rise away from her.
The anchors in her endosuit pull as it snaps away. A puff of air whistles from her lungs. Her muscles go tight. A burning sensation runs up the sections of her wires once inside the exosuit. Stray wires rest across her skin. More arms grab hold of smaller plate across her body. The ones across her forearms slowly pull away as smaller arms press into her skin. Little mechanical digits dig in and unlatch tabs in her skin. The burning spreads.
She wants to wince. She doesn’t.
Then, one of the mechanical arms hovers over her face. It latches to her helmet. Smaller ones dig into the sides and slide between almost airtight seems. The tips tickle the skin around her scalp and throat. They twist and she hears the screws unwind. The sound is deafening. A crack, and light pours in through the seams. The arms pull her helmet off and the wires across the back of her neck. It rises up and away from her body, adding to the collection of parts out of Conduit’s line of sight.
It takes a couple minutes to pull and push off the rest of the titanium. A few more minutes to pull the cloth barrier meant to prevent chaffing. Once the cold laboratory air touches her skin and endosuit, she involuntarily shivers. The mechanical arms and plates slide back under the table as their task is finished. Conduit half lays half sits on the armoring station, reduced to the biological flesh that exists under the metal. Her muscles tense and her eyes flick around. A wariness rises in the back of her mind. Reflexively, she tugs on the metal around her. She wants to wrap herself in it, reconstruct her external skin in a fragmented form for nothing but comfort.
But she doesn’t. Instead, she slowly turns her head to try and watch Dr. Reinhardt work.
Normally, when Dr. Reinhardt wants to modify her exosuit, he takes the shell over to one of his many work stations. Two are within arms reach. So when he doesn’t move and instead gets closer to her, Conduit forces herself still. A line of nervousness clings to her spine. In that second, she’s grateful that the lab is always frigid. The slight trembles of anticipation can be chalked up to the cold.
“Now, if we want to access the internals,” Dr. Reinhardt mutters to himself. “We will need to hemostatic agent to keep this clean.”
The air entering and leaving her lungs freezes in place. This isn’t modifying her exosuit. He is modifying her endosuit. The part of her suit that exists in her body. Modifying it requires cutting into her to reach the delicate circuitry. This isn’t working under her mechanical skin; this is working under her biological skin. Conduit takes a breath as silently as possible.
“Doctor,” Conduit forces her voice into professionalism, “Was there a scheduled update that I missed?”
Dr. Reinhardt shakes his head and almost shrugs, “No, I was just thinking about your in-optimal electrical output when exposed to adrenaline. I’ve noticed a through line from your suit’s data and I believe I’ve found a solution and I’d rather test it now.”
Her mouth dries.
Dr. Reinhardt steps off to the side and opens a drawer out of her line of sight. There's glass sounds bumping together and he fishes around. She internally coils up in the brief moments of silence. Then, there's a popping sound and more silence.
The needle sinks in right above her collarbone. It’s a pinch following a very warm sensation rolling through her body. It washes over her shoulders and latches onto the back of her spine. It grows warm, almost unbearably so before her muscles relax. Each fiber in her body goes still, starting with her shoulders, then arms, then torso, and finally her legs. Her body stills as the paralytic takes hold. It starts to creep up her face, and the last thing to leave her throat is a nervous whistle.
A few more minutes pass as Dr. Reinhardt prepares away from Conduit’s small circle of vision. Even her eyes start to glaze as those muscles relax in her skull. Eventually, he comes to stand over her still form. Conduit sees the light catch on the side of a scalpel. Dr. Reinhardt positions himself to her left and places a gloved hand right under her collarbone.
It bites into the skin. She cannot wince as the pain ripples up her neck. Dr. Reinhardt reaches down and pulls out a slender tube. Using the edge of the scalpel, Conduit feels him lift the layers of skin covering an access point to her mechanical parts. It taps against something and her electrokinesis ripples across her skin. An involuntary spark pops near his fingers.
“Don’t,” Dr. Reinhardt says focused.
I’m not trying to.
Conduit tries to focus on her abilities. Tries to feel for the electricity injected into her body and hold onto it. It skips under her mental fingers as the scalpel digs deeper, moving something metal aside.
Dr. Reinhardt places the tub in the mouth of the opening and slides it deeper. It fits itself firmly against her circuitry and grabs a hold of something. Her wires, long having found their homes nestling among her muscles and sinew, bump and prod under her skin. Long lengths of wire twitch and shift. A section of her spine radiates with dull ache. The anchors meant to keep the exosuit connected to her throb with an odd phantom pain.
He reaches over and pulls out another syringe and presses it into the tub. His thumb pushes the stopper and the conception sides down the tub and into her body. Its cold, but doesn’t alleviate the pain. The white hot pain mixes with the mechanical chill. her wires grow cool under her skin and slowly as the serum spread through her body. The mechanical parts that her mind forgot about now sit firmly in her senses. Old aches and pains from the intrusive additions to her body return for the first time in years.
Conduit wants to scream. Empty her lungs of any air and fry her vocal cords. Every nerve is on fire. Her neck and collarbone have the white hot feeling of blood pooling under her skin as he presses and moves flesh to access whatever entrance he installed in her. She wants her exosuit back. She wants to wrap herself in the cold familiarity of mechanical locks and curl in her arming bay.
“There we go,” Dr. Reinhardt mutters to himself as he sits back up. He steps backwards and pulls off his gloves with a quiet snapping sound. Her senses barely pick up on the sound of him walking over to where her exosuit sits.
Please give it back, I don’t want to be out anymore.
“I need to make some additions to the exosuit,” he says, once again more to himself than to her, “A few optimizations should reduce the strain when exposes to adrenaline.”
Conduit doesn’t move, letting herself spin in her own head. The cold room tingles across the new heat rushes through her internal circuitry. She lays there, grasping for her senses. Dr. Reinhardt’s tinkering sounds like its happening a mile away in a very acoustic tunnel. He continues to talk to himself as he works. She tries to listen, but for each second that passes it gets harder and harder to parse words from the swirl of syllables that float through the room.
It doesn't really matter that whumpee won't win. They're going to fight anyway. It's the principle of the thing, or rather, it's that they couldn't live with themselves anyway if they gave up, so they might as well die defiant.
i don't see a lot of defiant whumpees who are logical about it. "yeah, no, i'm not doing anything you say, because you're clearly a deranged individual who needs help." just digging themselves deeper and deeper into a bad situation because their own intellect prevents them from being passive and placating.
Whumpers who continuously try and provide as much comfort for Whumpee as possible. They’re not trying to hurt them in the sense that this isn’t malicious. To them, the whump is necessary but they still want to make sure it’s not all bad for Whumpee.
Allowing them a comfort item that gets them through particularly brutal days.
Letting them live and sleep outside of their facility under the assumption that they return whenever they’re required and keep completely silent about this or else.
Having casual conversations about Whumpee’s interests to take their mind off of things.
Similarly, letting them listen to music or putting on a certain show/movie in the middle of a harsh session.
Giving them ‘rewards’ be it something nice bought for them or a trip out somewhere shockingly tasteful.
Convincing other whumpers to be nicer and more lenient to Whumpee whilst still letting the whump happen in the first place.
Whumpee always gets well cooked meals that Whumper knows they like, as well as proper medical care and a soft bed to sleep on. If they were unwell or unhealthy, Whumper’s work would be much harder and less fruitful.
Whumpers who are viewed as a Caretaker by Whumpee, because they struggle to visualise a life without the torment they go through. It’s only the people not in their shoes that look inwards at Whumper and see how cruel they actually are.
Whumpee was recaptured. They expected pain and torture, but what waited for them was worse.
It was themself. A duplicate made from magic or a clone made from science, it didn't matter. Whumper tells Whumpee that the imposter will be sent back in their place in order to collect more information on Caretaker.
And Whumpee will watch Caretaker fall for the ruse through the duplicate's eyes.
Whumper slowly tracing the contours of whumpee's face with a finger (or claw) as whumpee leans back, trying to escape the contact without breaking the relative safety of the moment.
"Ah, ah," Whumper chides Whumpee, tapping their victim's jaw with increasing force until Whumpee is forced to open their eyes. "Don't you dare drift off. You're going to feel all of this. That's what you're for."
I'm so taken by the idea of Caretaker and drugged Whumpee. Maybe Caretaker finds them in the aftermath of what Whumper did, maybe Whumper did this to Whumpee and told Caretaker to "clean up the mess". The vulnerability of it, the humiliation.
Whumpee shaking, unable to speak clearly, curled into Caretaker's lap.
Caretaker looking around, waiting for Whumper to come back, because they know that they have to be nearby.
Whumpee trying to explain what happened, but they can't, for whatever reason that may be.
Whumpee apologizing. "I know I'm meant to be stronger than this, I know I'm meant to be better, I don't know why I can't stop crying, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"I don't want to, I don't want to, I'll be good, I'm sorry."
Whumpee not being able to move... nearly completely immobile, completely in Caretaker's hands, forced to trust that they'll be kind.
"Shh, shh... it's alright, it's just me. You're safe now."
Caretaker calling them pet names, stroking their hair, doing anything they can to try to reassure them.
hypnotized character struggling to keep it together in front of an audience. the desire to follow orders fighting with the need to keep up a facade. may involve profuse sweating, lightheadedness, or fainting from the stress.
whumpee just getting pills forced down their throat or needles shoved in their arms that are a mix of gods knows what concoctions that only Whumper is privileged to know
the nausea, the altered state of consciousness, the feeling of Whumpee's body failing to respond the way they know it should and not having any way to stop it because they don't even know what Whumper did to them
Your character is forced to go on the next mission despite barely recovering from the last one.
This could be them being shipped off with a dangerously high fever; with fresh surgical stitches or a cast on their arm. Maybe they didn't even get the time to mentally decompress from the last mission before they're off seeing The Horrors again.
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